Why Capitalism and Democracy Do Not Mix

It is a glaring contradiction of realities to suggest democracy,
that real and true democracy, can ever co-exist within or
alongside an economic system such as capitalism. The two are
in fact at the very opposite ends of the spectrum in regards to
human liberation: while true democracy is the empowerment
of the whole of society to act together with the shared equities
and responsibilities of a mutual lateral power for the benefit of
all, capitalism is the creation of totalitarian institutions,
environments and consequences which serve to reinforce
inequalities upon us as though they are normal and
necessary to an ordered society. It is the two which have been
unnaturally forced into co-existence that have brought about
the chaos of today's society.

In the current human hierarchy
we are separated by six primary points of division: we are first
and foremost separated by sex followed by race, education,
class, age, and religion. The topic at hand, class
division, will primarily be discussed, but it must be clearly
stated and fully realized that class division has an overwhelming
impact upon all other classified points of division.

To begin with, capitalism (as opposed to a true democratic,
lateral society) puts the resources of the land into the hands
of the few, thus forcing man to submit to a wage servitude
in order to obtain the basic needs of survival such as
food, shelter, adequate clothing, water, access to health
and medical care as well as education or information. Thus
capitalism to a very large extent dictates and controls
where we live, what we eat, who our neighbors are, the
quality of water we drink and the air we breathe, what
fabrics are on our backs, who gets substandard health care
and what "higher education" you will receive (if any).
Thus when the choices to sustain our lives and to pursue
our happiness are limited based upon the financial
resources we earn through our forced labors, one can see
the fallacy behind their so-called democracy. Their so called
democracy is the institutionalized enforcement of a
slave class by projecting a never ending dependency on
some one else to obtain the food we can easily grow
ourselves, the clothes we can easily sew ourselves, the
lessons we can learn through real life experience that will
be our true teachers.

Nor should we be dependent upon an economic
system of docility for our square boxes, when the resources
of the land should be available to everyone to build as they
wish, limited only by common sense and imagination.
So as you can see within a capitalist economic structure,
democracy cannot exist. People do not choose to be poor,
they are poor because of the inherent flaws of capitalism
that pits human against human for the necessities of man's
basic survival. Hence the capitalist society burdens us with
the unnecessary cancer of poverty and its malignant symptoms
of homelessness, illiteracy, unemployment, high
crime, high rate of people without proper medical and
preventive health care, and hunger. As capitalism further
isolates the poor from the decision making process, it
enforces the division by class, as wealth is distributed from
top to bottom. In making this class division capitalism puts
value on a person's ability to create or acquire wealth,
which further fuels sexism, as it is man--not woman--who
controls the distribution of the natural resources from
which the wealth is created. Class divisions also further fuel racism, as the
ruling races, not the subjugated or indigenous races, make the
regulations of how those resources will be distributed. In
everyday life these truths are abundantly evident, in
every country that practices a form of capitalism, without
exception, from its most liberal democratic to the most
totalitarian dictatorship.

Until there is the complete abolition of wage enforced
capitalist slavery there can be no true democracy, because
the wishes of the controlling or ruling classes will always
be of priority over the voices of the workers, even when the
consequences (such as the current war in Iraq) are disastrous
to the interest of the majority. We also see it everyday with
the gentrification of neighborhoods, we see it with suburban
sprawl, we see it with global warming and other environmental
issues that directly effect the resources that we
as humans need to survive, we see it with the lack of
universal health care, we see it in the struggle for a living
wage, we see it with the struggle for improved education
and a free education. All around us we see where voices
are not being heard and lives are being sacrificed to the
capitalist machine because it is not in the interest of the
bottom line, the profit margin. The capitalist barons
have their lobbyists, they have bought the politicians
who have created laws not in the interest of creating a
more democratic society based upon the wishes of the
people they represent, but in the interest of creating more
wealth for those who are already more wealthy than
greater than 97% of the entire world's population. We do
not live in a democratic society. If we did you would see
politicians making promises in homeless shelters.

From the pages of Anarchist Atlanta #6, being distributed at the annual demonstration against the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia, USA, in November of 2007.

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Comments (2 of 2)

Man, that is just as well said and well thought as it comes! Wonderful.

Any half-awake person can see the pyramid scheme symbol on the back of the U.S. one dollar bill. Want to see the BIGGER representation of that symbol?

www.winternet.com/~wingnut/img/capitalism7.jpg

Pretty, eh? SlaveCorp parents (bottom 1/3 of pyramid scheme)... kick their kids into "the great sharktank" when they turn 18 years old. Rich parents... build their kids a house on family land and start an account for them. tsk tsk. Some NICE equality we have going there, eh? What happened to freeing the slaves? When are we going to finish THAT project? For the kids, the policy is SHARE SHARE SHARE until its time to join the Free Marketeers church of competing at 18 years old... and then its a drastic policy change to FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT. How terrible.

Maybe someday the Christian groups will notice the servitude in capitalism, and maybe someday we'll ALL remember a childhood farmyard lesson taught by gramma... about the weight-of-world and knees-in-back oppression of stacking children into pyramids... so that SOME may "get high". The children on the bottom ALWAYS GET HURT! WE all know better than to act like children and do a tug-o-war over goodies and empowerment... called capitalism. The capitalists have all been caught with our/their hands in the cookiejar, and its time to own-up.

We just need the Center for Disease Control to ANNOUNCE the enjoyment addiction and the shopping addiction. That would help immensely. Then someone else needs to say "Hey, competition ISN'T HEALTHY AT ALL... and it is the OPPOSITE of a phenomenon called cooperation."

Just look at average nation-to-nation trade talks. "Cooperate to remain competitive" "Remain competitive in a cooperative manner" ???? That's not going to work. Smashmouth competition is really not conducive to loving cooperation. FENCES on borders??? Ever heard of churches and welcome wagon centers... and places to get some free sloppy joes and a cold lemonade... for our weary travelling migrants? WE USED-TO WELCOME visitors. Now we border them out, like we've done to each other with our yard fencing and security systems??

STOP PYRAMIDING, AMERICA AND WORLD!!! See the pyramids out in the dessert? Symbols, anyone?? PAY ATTENTION!! When you condone, promote, and join capitalism... when you "bought-into" the free marketeers.... you bought into a sham. And now there's a runaway compete-a-thon and enjoyment addiction going-on, and a distrust-a-thon, and a lot of forcing, inequality, and servitude. There's one HELL of a lot of materialism and self-absorbtion JUNKIES!!! Nice job, America! Real intelligent! Ever heard of rank-by-intelligence or rank-by-morals.... instead of rank-by-gouging-abilities? pfft. Lost puppies of competing and bad-apple accusers.

Could we all say "I mean, hey..." anymore? The line "I mean, hey..." almost YELLS a general "its not my problem" attitude USA-wide. Watch how many times American's say "I mean". Its embarrassing. WE're all playing football for blood. Death monopoly. "Pull your weight, measure up, earn your keep, not my problem." Sheesh! How competitive. How AmWay! (American Way) How pyramid. How mean.

Here's a last note on pyramid structures...

www.winternet.com/~wingnut/text/capitalism.htm

I hear lots of "us" and "them" and "our" in the ralroaded media. Do we have an "US versus THEM" war going-on in our nation? GOOD, cuz that's the way the government wants us to think. Actually, WE are all part of the same group... the species called mankind, and maybe when the crew of this spaceship called Earth.... can get-along with each other... then maybe WE can ALL learn to pilot this craft.

9-11 wasn't an attack on America... it was an attack on the WTO and Pentagon for foreign policies (whoring folks with money). It was payback for the WTO going into Saudi Arabia with buckets of trading money, and whoring all of its people to build military bases and pump oil. It was an attack on two organizations, not on a country. Neat how the USA government railroaded Americans, though, eh? Americans believe almost any "paint job" anyone puts on something... because Americans... are too busy rat-racing for position on a pyramid scheme of survival goodies... to have time to do any investigations or critical thinking. Yikes.

Capitalism is infested with servitude, and its easy to see with the massive use of the term "order" within capitalism. When someone "orders" a burger, it sends forced-to-be-there slavecorp folks into action, OR ELSE! That's felony extortion. It is illegal to force folks to join the Free Marketeers church of competing. I suggest competer's take a look at the opposite... cooperating/Christianity/altruism.

In the several years since the Capital Terminus Collective's inception , the Anarchist Atlanta newsletter has been published sporadically, but it has continued to be published. Given the weak state of the anarchist communist movement in the USA generally, and the absence of any libertarian revolutionary legacy in the South, I am delighted simply that the collective has survived, and continues to publish. In contrast to the tendency for groups to disappear as quickly as they appear, like mushrooms, a core group has remained active within the CTC for several years, and deserves credit for this limited, but still significant, success. Hats off to Vodka, Joe, and the rest of the Atlanta comrades!